Today's headlines boldly declare Monaco's victory, and allow it to mend its matters discreetly behind the scenes.
The past is prologue to today:
December 3, 1999, the inconvenient billionaire banker Edmond Safra was killed--the day his widow became a citizen of Monaco,
The day his Republic Bank's sale to HSBC was approved, netting her three billion.
Her preparations were meticulous: her paid agent pencilled in Ted Maher and Vivian Torrent at the last minute,
She'd sent Edmond's security team to the palatial estate La Leopolda, having disconnected the penthouse burglar alarm July 1, 1999.
She'd changed his will to her benefit, and would cremate him, burying him in Switzerland, not Israel as he'd wished.
The Monaco police chief inspector Olivier Jude completed the FBI National Academy in March, 1999,
And would supervise the three-day brutal interrogation, sleep-deprivation and extortion of Ted's signature on the police document.
The Monaco prosecutor Daniel Serdet would lie that Ted was on drugs, knowing the hospital tests proving him a liar would be suppressed.
The Monaco pretend defenders, the pickled Georges Blot, and the unctious Donald Manasse would be good dogs--
Forcing Ted to adhere to the extorted false confession.
The order was given that Ted's one phone call a week would be disconnected should he discuss the details of the night in question.
He was permitted no mail in or out discussing the event, as authorities illegally intercepted his correspondence to his chosen attorney.
The trial judge forbade Ted's chosen attorney from addressing the court contrary to Monaco law--
Yet when Ted's congresswoman Sue Kelly, the House International Relations Committee, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advised Secretary of State Colin Powell of this, the ban was withdrawn.
Despite everything the pretend defenders could do, Griffith began to extricate the truth from the wreckage of justice--
Although the court barred Dr. Michael Baden from most of his testimony, he was able to introduce the murder of Vivian and her spattering with Edmond's blood.
Even with its awakening Ted every twenty to forty minutes with a flashlight in his eyes, Monaco could not break him.
He is very dangerous to them, as he is the only living witness to the truth.
But he is not the only danger to Monaco's cover up.
Lily tried to buy off Vivian's husband to prevent an insurance investigation;
But Ireneo burned his attorneys and faces their suit, as well as their knowledge of the true circumstances.
The Safra family whom Lily cheated in her will tampering, whom Lily tried to bar from Edmond's funeral, are not quiescent.
Nor are they as poor as the working mother of three whom she's robbed of husband and father for three years.
All which has been expounded by way of suppressed exculpatory evidence and manufactured incriminating evidence remains.
Dominick Dunne has had behind the scenes conferences as has Joseph Safra.
The court's action was never in doubt, and if anything has been watered down--
Indeed, Serdet had beaten his chest that he would have twenty years--but the court did not even give his reduced twelve--
And the ten is a nice round number for the press. Monaco can save face with that.
And it now must weigh if it will engineer Ted's "suicide"--or simply do what's been discussed for some time:
Declare victory and let Ted go home to his family--after another face-saving interval.
The chief prosecutor of Geneva said Edmond Safra was killed for cooperating with the FBI regarding the laundering of $4.8 billion in IMF loans to Russia through his Republic Bank;
Henry Kissinger said the death of Edmond Safra was a "cruel, vindictive act";
Anne Williamson author of Contagion wrote me she was certain Ted Maher was a scapegoat for the laundering which profited the Clintons, Rubin, Summers and a half dozen Russians.
President Bush accused Viktor Chernomyrdin of this during a debate.
Chernomyrdin went red in the face and shouted threats of lawsuit.
This has not materialized, although Pavel Borodin was arrested in New York the morning of Bush's innauguration.
Extradited to Switzerland, bailed by Vladimir Putin for three million, Borodin was said by an Israeli journalist who emailed me to have been paid through Banco del Gottardo--
Note, he said, that Banco del Gottardo still maintains its branch in La Belle Epoque at 17 Avenue d'Ostende.
Three days to extort its signature on its prepared false confession; three years in isolation with enforced medication; a quick show trial showing nothing;
And a quiet release after a decent interval to save its face.